The present invention relates to optical mounting systems, and more specifically to kinematic mounts for large, heavily loaded optics.
Due to the accuracy usually required in the mounting of precision optical systems, kinematic principles are often found to be necessary. A body in space has six degrees of freedom (i.e. ways in which it can move). These are: translation along the three rectangular coordinate axes, and rotation about those three axes.
A body is fully constrained when each of these possible movements is individually prevented from occurring. If a movement in any particular degree of freedom is prevented by more than one mechanism, then a body is overconstrained, and its support system becomes redundant. All but one of the constraints will be ineffective, or the body will be deformed by the multiple constraint, and loads will be indeterminate. Typical mounting systems that are not sensitive to these deformations usually use a redundant configuration for simplicity and low cost. A mount that satisfies the requirement of fixing all degrees of freedom without redundant constraint is termed "kinematic", and a good optical mount will always employ some version of it. Use of a kinematic mounting system also results in relative insensitivity to thermal differential distortions and manufacturing tolerances, and provides greater positioning control.